Ted Bogosian takes us on an inside journey in Anatomy of a Homicide: Life on the Streets, through the nearly decade long running television show, and through the particularly poignant episode, “Subway.” Homicide: Life on the Streets aired for most of the nineties from 1993 to 1999, breaking the iconic one hundred episode mark, reaching one hundred and twenty two. The show featured the Baltimore Police Department’s Homicide Unit and had an unusual realism for broadcast television that for all it’s art and integrity, relegated it to the 10:00pm, a post-prime-time position. However, one episode designed as an arrow to vault over mediocre ratings, the bane of art on broadcast television, was the subway, whereas rather than remitting realism in order to reach median audiences with a softer message and fluff, the show dipped deeper into it’s existential origins and illustrated a picture of life, and death, not usually dealt to wide-network televisions.

“Subway” is a story about John Lang (Vincent D’Onofrio), who on a usual morning’s commute through the newly installed Baltimore subway system, has an unusual encounter with life and death. While moving toward the train, in a flash of camera shots and angles, Lang stumbles and falls to the horn blast of an oncoming train. Next scene, he is caught between the station and steel of the train. The strangeness is that he is aware, intelligible, lucid. Detective Pembleton, a Homicide staple, and begins asking the trapped man traditional questions, “Mr. Lang, can you tell me what happened?” “You were pushed? Did you see who pushed you?” “Is there someone we can get ahold of for you?” Belligerent Lang, seemingly unaware of his mortality, though perhaps panicked subconsciously, berates Pembleton, “I’ve talked to you cops already, lemme talk to whoever’s getting me the hell outta this.”

Confused witnesses say he was pushed, but then “no, he wasn’t pushed, he fell” and “I was jostled, and then he fell,” but one witness arouses the suspicion of second detective, Mike Kellerman. Witness Larry Biedron tells a changing tale of the incident and remains in questioning for the rest of the episode. Lang, however, is coming to realize the severity of his injury. “He got twisted from the waste down like a rubber band,” says an EMT beneath the train to Detective Pembleton, “his spinal cord is probably severed, so he isn’t in much pain.” Above the train, Lang is asking repeated questions, “I am going to be ok right?” “She said I am going to be ok!” But doubt is creeping into his voice, fueling the rage of being trapped by the train.

Pembleton rests on his investigative questions and realizes instead, bonding is the victim is the best he can do. They form an easy alliance against the nurse, whose professionalism seems out of place under the conditions of life and death, and Pembleton argues on Lang’s behalf that she provide him pain medication.

That atmosphere is really profound here, the audience is unwittingly transported to the trapped man’s body. The reality of life, so full and vigorous and perhaps rich, is present in one man, bottled up in his body by the precarious impingement of his torso to the train station’s platform, as soon as the rescue team pushes the train away with pressurized bags, that life will slip out as the “elastic band” lets loose. The immediate fragility is so palpable, so accessible, so unusual for broadcast television. And elements of philosophy are interwoven, with additional darkness.

Detective Kellerman learns suspicious witness Biedron is found to have a history of people pushing into oncoming trains, and to have been committed for mental illness. Indeed, in the final scene Pembleton dips his head into the police car with confiscated Biedron, but Biedron quite unwittingly says, “Hey, you still got my ID, I need that back,” illustrating his disconnectedness and adding an ambiguous meaninglessness to the scene, playing quite an untraditional villain.

However there is a strange band of beauty in the sunset of Lang’s life. He opens his eyes wide as the machines pry his body from the platform and says something in a trance. His eyes wide and glaring, he seems oddly solitary amidst the chaos about him, and emits an uncanny tranquility. “Have you ever seen the leaves on a sugar maple tree, when a storm is coming, will turn over to take in the rain.”

The words wear heavily on Pembleton and indeed seem to reverberate as an abstraction from all that has been happening on the deck. They seem transcendentally elegant, especially amidst the scene of darkness and death. The episode ends with Lang’s girlfriend running past the subway unknowing of the passing of her lover and the scene seems to imply that the world goes on despite the pain and beauty taking place continuously, and often does ignorantly, perhaps blissfully.

Ted Bogosian captures the action behind the scenes in the PBS documentary Anatomy of a Homicide: Life on the Streets. In traditional documentarian style an authoritatively voiced narrator takes the viewer through the experience of being on the set. The journey from inception to production is documented. Writer James Yoshimura is inspired by a Taxicab Confessions episode where a New York detective responds to the drivers question “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen?” The detective candidly describes reoccurring incidents of victims being stuck between subway platforms and subway trains. He uses a plastic bag filled with water to illustrate the twisting effect the lower body undergoes that serves as a tourniquet to the torso. Yoshimura, intrigued, pitches the idea to the Homicide’s creating team in a comfy, living room like scene on couches. All find the idea interesting and Yosimura gets to work. Bogosian’s camera then follows the writer through creation and illustrates the organization of the organization.

Humor is woven in by Bogosian as Yosimura attempts to get permission for profanity in the script. Censorship replies, look “I can give you a dump or a crap, but not a dump and a crap.” “But don’t you need to take a dump to have crap?” Yosimura fires back. The negotiation doesn’t stop there. Organizationally, above the creators are administrators, who must deal with logistics. They provide the stark reality of bottom line and possibility. Yosimura argues with a manager over the use of the Baltimore subway for the scene, the manager, dubious about cost and complication, retorts it’s unfeasibility. Yet finally his manager agrees and the team manages to secure the subway, provided they shoot from dusk to dawn, in a single night.

The documentary then demonstrates the show’s requirement for innovation. There is no adequate shot for the actor wedged between the train and the platform, the train is simply too close. So they contract out an aluminum sheath so that adjoining train-cars can be connected, providing the illusion that they are one. Actor D’Onofrio is then able to perform mid-platform, while both the Homicide crew and Bogosian’s camera capture the action.

The episode from start to finish is filmed over a week, requiring intense collaboration and orchestration. A single camera is used to reduce cutting and editing. Scenes are shot back-to-back in absence of repose. Everything is on the fly, the staff operates like clock-work, well conditioned and ready for the stress. Weekly, a new director is brought in to give a fresh touch to every episode. Ironically, the creative input of the director, is often marginalized as the organizational production machine proves enormously resistant to change. This induces successful directors to use a sort of finesse, to convince rather than direct, influence rather than impel.

Finally, production is completed, it was a whirlwind of cameras, typewriters, negotiations, laughs and arguments, but it is over. Everyone celebrates at a local bar where the episode in full form airs for the first time. Bogosian’s camera then sets on the bar-room television for the opening scene of Homicide. The pictures then blend so that Bogosian’s audience is watching the Subway episode as if it were aired directly to their televisions. All of the spectacular magic of production disappears and what is left is a final product quite seamless and authentic. The plot unfolds as a complete narrative, with additional audience impact as this audience was privy to the production process.

When Lang’s girlfriend again passes the subway on her run, closing the episode, Bogosian’s camera pans out and the bar-room audience is revealed once more. There is a breathing out and it is all cheers to another exhausting episode completed, one that would put Homicide: Life on the Streets back in nearly the number one television ratings slot. An anatomical dissection of a television program’s production process took place in Bogosian’s traditionally sound yet slightly avant-garde documentary Anatomy of a Homicide: Life on the Streets.

Ted Bogosian’s An Armenian Journey: Documentary Review and Further Thoughts

A courageous foray into documentary filmmaking, Ted Bogosian’s An Armenian Journey is a mixture of a hunt to report information and a daring emotional investigation “behind enemy lines.” The film addresses the Armenian genocide and annihilation in 1915 by the Young Turk leadership, an event that remains to this day without an official perpetrator or guilty party in the eyes of the international community. This is because the Turkish government has taken careful steps to remain guiltless in the matter and, as a result of the genocide, Armenians have virtually exploded geographically all over the world and their international power to gain recognition is weak. As a filmmaker of Armenian descent, Bogosian’s approach is an entirely personal one; the filmmaker constructs the film as a quest to finally put a lid on the terrible event haunting the history of Armenians. Bogosian sets out to not only understand the Armenian genocide on a personal level but also concretize the guilty party through the uncovering of Soviet documents implicating a guilty party. The result is a passionate film that draws the viewer into the intensity and sentimentality of genocide.

Style
The film is presented as a feat of production. Bogosian makes it known that the Turkish government has been trying to distance itself from the Armenian genocide since 1915, and has successfully lobbied in the United States against having America recognize the event as a genocide. Further, it is said that millions of dollars of Turkish money are spent to prevent the spread of knowledge about the Armenian genocide, and that this film is the first primetime investigation of the truth. It is as though the viewer is not actually “supposed” to be seeing what they are about to see.
This draws the audience in from the outset of the film, letting us know that we will be in on an age-old international secret that has been uncovered by Bogosian. This intriguing commencement of the film is enough to pique the interest of the viewer on the matter, but the filmmaker seeks to dive deeper into his investigation to keep this interest high. Bogosian efficiently keeps the audience engaged throughout the film, pulling in highly emotional stories along with academic and political evidence to implicate the Young Turks in the genocide of his native Armenians.
Bogosian’s film ends up pursuing two stories deeply: the story of Mariam Davis, a witness of the genocide, and Bogosian’s own story of trying to track down a Soviet document that clearly states the guilt of the Young Turks in the war crimes against the Armenians. The filmmaker not only interviews Davis but follows her back to Eastern Turkey, where the two must hide their Armenian heritage and act like American tourists, to return to the spots where her mother and brothers were taken from her and killed by the Turks. Simultaneously to this plotline, Bogosian is in Soviet Russia, attempting to uncover and translate an old Turkish document that has information on the court proceedings following the genocide. Upon finally being granted access to the documents and with the help of Turkish professor Kevork Bardakijan, Bogosian leads the audience in the discovery that the Young Turk leadership was found guilty of war crimes in the Armenian genocide. It is obvious that the viewer has not only been let in on an international secret at this point, but has also been let in on the meaning of such a discovery for people like Bogosian and Davis.

Emotional Approach

Bogosian by no means attempts to detach himself and his emotions from the investigation into the Armenian genocide. From the beginning, it is known that he is the one going out to find the information, engaging in conversations with those who suffered in the genocide, and speaking with academics about the genocide. He wants to know the anecdotal evidence as well as the historical evidence on the subject, getting to the essence of how genocide changes not only a people, but also a person. The viewer comes to understand the effects an event such as this catastrophe can change a person through the eyes of Mariam Davis, but also how it can change a culture through the eyes of the academics and Bogosian.
Does this “personal journey” approach leave more of a mark on the viewer? I want to ponder this emotional approach in juxtaposition with another film on genocide, Night and Fog by Alain Resnais (watch free here). This is a short film made about concentration camps during World War II comprised of shocking archival footage and modern day shots of the overgrown camps. It is not a personal journey but rather contrarily a presentation of facts and footage that alone stand to tell the story of the Holocaust. By nature of Holocaust archival footage, the thirty-minute film is one of the most horror inducing and emotionally heavy films ever created in my opinion. The factual approach is more shocking for the viewer because it gives the audience a full grasp on the breadth of the genocide rather than just a few small stories related to it. Bogosian himself states in his film that the story of Mariam Davis, that so much time of An Armenian Journey is dedicated to, is simply anecdotal and pales in comparison to the scope of the actual genocide.
Does this mean that Resnais’ approach is stronger than Bogosian’s? Absolutely not. They are simply two vastly different ways of going about telling the story of genocide. Both leave the viewer feeling passionate on the subject yet one presents a more macro view than the other. Perhaps this is what Bogosian was going for; his main feat in An Armenian Journey is making the viewer care deeply about the plight of the Armenian people through a few personal stories, and then bringing the viewer to salvation through the discovery and translation of the Soviet document.

The “shock” film in the time of global media
Finally, this film piqued another thought that is addressable within the themes of this course. This film was made in 1988, before the time of true media globalization. The stylistic approach that Bogosian takes is one of almost a “shock” film, telling the viewer that what they are about to see has never been seen before. In the era that this was made, this approach was a novel idea; most of the information that people received had already been filtered by the government or media channels and had been censored down. Thus, getting in on an international secret was something quite special for a viewer.
However, in the time of Julian Assange, Twitter, YouTube, and immediate news, does this stylistic approach still carry the same weight? Does it still really mean anything if the Turkish government has spent millions of dollars trying to stop the information flow about the Armenian genocide when a document such as the one uncovered by Bogosian in the film could be translated by a computer and uploaded to Wikileaks within seconds for the world to see? I fear that the globalization of media has thrown a hitch into Bogosian’s approach. Films that construct themselves as his does- as a quest for information uncovering- do not come off quite as shocking in this era as they did just twenty short years ago. Perhaps there is no such thing as an international secret anymore.

Technically, Ted Bogosian’s The Press Secretary and Access, (Season 5, episode 18) of The West Wing, are two sides of the same coin. The Press Secretary is the result of a three day journey, commissioned by PBS, into the life of Joseph Lockhart - the Press Secretary to the Clinton Administration. Lockhart, a former news reporter himself, knows the trade well and is in a constant balancing act, between his loyalty to the President’s administration, and his fellow citizens. The same could be said of Access, where a crew from NBC gains access into the office of press secretary C.J. Cregg and reveals to the public, after the administration has come out of office, how she struggles to gain knowledge of what is happening in the White House in order to communicate it to the public without generating panic.

Appropriation and Reaching an Audience.
Traditionally, appropriations of this type (documentary to prime time) tend get lost in translation. However, the writing and directing of Access provided for a very loyal conversion of Bogosian’s documentary. The role of the press secretary stayed much the same in that s/he tried to get information out to the public but at the same time had to be very careful of what was said to reporters. The same goes for the role of reporters, who were presented akin to vultures, waiting to pounce on any slip as prey. Formally, the narrator acted similarly – in a more factual rather than opinionated role. The overall feel of both productions, in its extremely high quality, was very similar. The well-lit interviews, proper framing, impeccable sound mixing and editing and seamless intermixing of filming and archival video were key elements to providing a trustworthy source in both productions.

Nevertheless, the nature of these two productions, as a documentary and as a prime-time episode, give way to key differences between them and the functions they perform. As a documentary, Bogosian’s film is much longer than Access and of course provides a much more detailed look into the Press Secretary’s office. However, Access has a different advantage in informing audiences about the White House Press Office. As an episode of the hit drama: The West Wing, it reaches an audience that far surpasses the audience reached by Bogosian’s very specific documentary, in spite of it being commissioned by NBC.

Bogosian’s documentary is obviously tailored for a more customized audience of highly curious, more intellectual viewers. It presents to whomever wants to watch it a thorough look into the workings of the information they consume and of official media outlets. This type of insight is key to maintaining an educated, level-headed, well-discerning public. In translating the documentary into a TV show the producers of the West Wing did the American public a similar service to Bogosian’s documentary. Easy to watch, highly entertaining, very polished and short in length, the episode condenses Bogosian’s long and more thorough look into the White House Press Corps. In reaching a wider, more varied audience with general interests, Access performs a function that is more like a good to the public, in the sense that it teaches this public of something it otherwise would not be taught about. Not everyone would sign up to watch a documentary about the Press Secretary, while a very wide audience will sit down to watch an hour-long episode of their favorite prime-time TV show that happens to feature a portrait of the press secretary.

Obviously, changing the audience to which a production caters changes its intentionality. A documentary has the purpose of doing exactly that, documenting, and informing. A prime-time episode has the purpose of acquiring ratings and selling advertising slots. However, the producers of The West Wing remained very loyal to what Bogosian presented as a portrait of the press secretary. By doing that they managed to get a prime-time episode to perform the aforementioned function: a good public deed.

Is it true, if certain elements are left out?
In spite of being masterfully made and extremely well-tailored, both productions leave the educated viewer with a sense of lack. There seems to be something missing in the portrait painted of the press secretary. Can someone really be that well-intentioned? Although Lockhart is quick to acknowledge that there is “an incredible temptation to shave truth here and there” he also asserts that the “simple most important thing is that every time your mouth opens, truth comes out. If you just can’t find a way to articulate the truth then keep your mouth shut.” Although this gives him a moral high-ground to stand on, the important thing here is the ability to articulate the truth. The job of the press secretary is to hand out the truth to hungry reporters, but more importantly, it is to hand out a truth that will merely satisfy their appetite. The truth comes in many forms, in different portions, and at different times. As a White House attaché the truth that comes from the press secretary is naturally in line with the agenda of the White House.

The job cannot be defined in binaries. The Press Secretary highlights the everyday struggle of trying to balance between two opposing agendas “we have an agenda [and the reporters have an agenda] and it is a battle everyday over who wins.” Although the documentary and the episode seem to be filmed through more rose-tinted lenses, reality is a little blurrier. It is for that reason, that a good Press Secretary knows how to tread that line well. While it is easy to call him a shark, a character there to spin, twist, and deceive the reporters, and by that, the citizenry of the country, there is another side present in the documentary and its appropriation. The Press Secretary comes off as the champion of balance between ensuring the reporters are given the truth, but essential elements are contained inside the White House walls. His position is, and will remain, a little murky. It cannot be denied that he is the champion, but one in a game of manipulation. A shrewd cleverness becomes an innate part of his role as Press Secretary. While he will not lie to the reporters, there can be no denial that he will strive to maintain an upper hand in hopes of coming out victorious should disaster strike.

The question is, are we, as consumers of this information, content with someone whose rule of thumb is at best, being vague? Especially if this person is someone we have entrusted with giving us the truth. Lockhart knows he has done his job well when, he says, “[I am most satisfied when] everyone is a bit dissatisfied. Essence is vagueness.” The news media has caught onto this, and continues to provoke. More so because they believe they have been given the responsibility of standing in for the public. They too, have marshaled themselves as heroic, in spite of both The Press Secretary and Access portraying the media in a negative light. They seem to be constant naggers who are snooping through holes for the next big headline.

Ultimately, it comes down to, do we, as the general public trust the administration to provide us with necessary information? Do we think that they may keep certain information, important information, from us because it may do us more harm to be exposed to it? If we believe that the administration is working in our favor, then we should be satisfied with the information we get. However, we live in a world where satisfaction is not the fashionable norm. In a world now governed by media, there is constant curiosity. No matter what information we get, we want more. We need more. The administration must work with this insatiable appetite of the consumer, more so with the advent of the digital age than ever before.

Critical Agents in a digitized world.
Today’s uncensored, real-time, multi-source circulation of news and information holds the White House, and for that matter any government agency in a territory where free speech and freedom of press are constitutional, accountable for its actions. Accountability has become increasingly important, and with it so has transparency. The documentary and the episode both showcase the very delicate and artful dance between transparency, accountability, and information that one person has to perform for the entire country daily – with many trying to sabotage the performance. The press secretary’s duties, aside from informative, are very much performative. There’s an active drawing of reality as the administration strives to keep the American public abreast with what is happening.

By exposing the channels that news goes through to get to the media-consumer, we, as the general public become better informed and hopefully, more vigilant in what information we choose to believe. In an age when we have perhaps too many options to choose from, the responsibility no longer lies with just one man, or an administration. We, as the general public play as important a role in ensuring that the information we choose to believe is authentic. This age has changed us from passive consumers into critical agents. The luxury of fast-paced, real time news and perhaps the ability to have as much access to transparency as we do today, is a relatively new development. Eisenhower was the first President to allow Press Conferences to be recorded, edited and then released later. It was under Kennedy that live broadcasts of Press Conferences were allowed. The transformation becomes even more apparent when we compare the media hype that followed the Indian PM’s visit to Clinton to Nehru’s visit to Kennedy which was shot only in silent film.

This live information we are getting both creates, and feeds our insatiable curiosities. It is important to note that while we may have become more informed and government agents increasingly transparent, it doesn’t mean that all the information we get is accurate. With pressure to provide news stories round the clock, there is less time for thought. As a reporter reflects in The Press Secretary, there isn’t the luxury of waiting to dissect a story anymore. Reporters have less time to think between getting information, writing, and reporting. As C.J. Cregg asks in Access, “how do we reflect? get perspective?” Information has become more speculative and less thoughtful.

The documentary also highlights what we sometimes forget: in preparing for press conferences, everything is incredibly calculated. The President is briefed on the questions that are anticipated, and the right responses to those answers. The calculative method is important to ensure he is not stumped. More importantly, it is a good way to ensure that the answer that is provided does not contradict a previous White House statement. While it is easy to lay blame on not getting the whole truth from the White House, it is harder to acknowledge that we may be accomplices in creating the half-truths that we complain about. In trying to satiate our curiosities, the news agencies are thrust into a race to provide us with current information, for “the White House press office feeds a media machine with a round-the-clock appetite.” (Access).

If what is fed to the reporters is not necessarily the whole truth, if they have no time to process it, and if we require constant information but don’t assume a role as critical consumers of media we are condemned to live in a world of half-truths. This brings forth the dilemma C.J. Cregg pronounces in Access: “This breakneck pace we live at, the 24-hour news cycle… is this good for the country?

Is it inescapable?”

Theodore Bogosian’s The Press Secretary is an intimate eye-witness account of the west wing of the White House, where the press secretary and his staff work every day to control the influx and outflow of news and what information the press receives from the White House. The film follows the press secretary and his staff for several days. During that time a variety of issues emerge, such as the release of Wen Ho Lee and the failing health of the Indian Prime Minister, which ultimately leads to the cancellation of the press conference in exchange for a smaller, more informal pool spray. The film documents the organized, well-managed office of the press secretary. Throughout the film the pacing retains a sense of mystery, even though technically the audience would be aware that the press conference that Bogosian had gone to film would be cancelled. It deals with a variety of issues: the acceleration of the news cycle in the budding internet age; the clash between the press and the press secretary; and the need to be vigilant to any change in politics, legislation, or news in order to be prepared for press questions.

In reflection to how the press secretary’s office saw Bogosian and his crew, he reflects that “I think they realized that what I was trying to do was an honest effort to show how organized… they could be”, and The Press Secretary does reflect his goal. The documentary is very successful in giving a real-life feeling of how it would be to work as and for the press secretary. In the shots, there is usually constant office noise in the background (opposed to music or sound affects), snippets of brief personal interaction between staff members, and cut back camera shots. These aspects give a sense of authenticity and simplicity to the film. Opting out of fancy video editing and heavy sound effects allows the documentary to be presented as a factual and neutral representation of the west wing.

Short conversations and joke exchanges between the press secretary and his fellow staff or between press veterans give a paradoxical sense of amicability and warmth while at the same time showing a constant weariness between the two sides – one slip of the tongue on the side of the press secretary can be used immediately in the next news cycle as a headline. The documentary is excellent at showing the strain of job through a mix of close shots, pacing, constant movement of people, and jumping from the issue of news cycles to overzealous press members to other issues. It can be seen as an unbiased representation of how things work in the White House, as well as showing the difficulties that the people working in the White House have with fast paced information input and output.

The Press Secretary makes an insightful comment on the acceleration of media. Watching the film more than a decade after it was released, it is impossible to not associate news and media with the internet. However, it is stated early on in the documentary that there were 50 websites on the world wide web when Clinton was elected President, but 25 million by 2000. The Clinton administration had to deal with the technological change which began to “transform the entire culture of White House journalism”. It is explained that the news cycle, which used to take a couple of days, was suddenly being compressed into a single day.

One staff member of the press secretary says that “there isn’t the luxury of waiting until Sunday to dissect it, so it all happens immediately and it makes it less thoughtful and more speculative”. In the film Bogosian reveals how the press secretary was trying to deal with social networking. Through interviews with press and the press secretary alike, the film hints that there is great unease and worry about the acceleration of the news cycle. Bogosian almost seems to represent the accelerating news cycle as a vehicle out of control by both the press and the press secretary. It is associated with words like “less thoughtful”, “speculative”, and “immediate” which leads to the question: when is it too much? Will there come a point where news will be so quickly sped through the system that it loses any sense of truth? The film is a subtle criticism to the speeding new cycle. News has become a two way street, and it’s difficult to keep up with information or keep track of it. Bogosian’s message that is hinted throughout the film is that the accelerating news cycle is dangerous and has lead to a standardization of the news.

The documentary also subtly illustrates a tension between the press and the press Secretary and his staff. Joe Lockhart states that he has done his job when he has given away the minimum of information. The press, on the other hand, wish to glean as much information as possible. Joe Lockhart puts it very plainly: “we have an agenda, the press has their own agenda, and it’s a battle every day over who wins” Thus, there are conflicting goals which leads to an underlying tension throughout the film. Although very neutral, Bogosian does use negative imagery when describing the press, saying for example how the “stills have thirty seconds to capture their prey”. The press are presented as pushy, obstinate, and aggressive, but that is their job because “ultimately they want to get news”.

Bogosian also notes, however, how “the messages coming out of the White House are so controlled, so finely honed – they just don’t want to tell the truth about stuff”. The documentary itself was not allowed to be screened until after the Clinton administration, and before that Bogosian had received an email stating that the footage belonged to the Clinton Administration library and not to him. This tight control of information is presented in the documentary at the same time as the dogged obstinacy of the press to get their news. Hence, The Press Secretary successfully portrays the conflicting goals of both sides using battle imagery and language – which also gives a sense of excitement and tension to the audience.

The main and most important role of the press secretary is to arm the president to be able to tackle the press. Bogosian highlights how significant and difficult the role of the press secretary is by showing footage of press conferences with President Eisenhower and later President Kennedy. In comparison to the silent, wind up film of Kennedy’s meeting with the Indian Prime Minister, current media demands non-stop coverage, immediate news for the every accelerating news cycle, and a need to be constantly vigilant because everything the president or the press secretary says is being recorded and could be used to give the wrong message about US policy.

There is no denying it: the mechanisms by which information is produced, regulated and disseminated have drastically changed throughout the years, especially in an information age of such technological surges and advancement that mere printed news is considered antiquated. Along with the development of the web space has come an alteration in the way we as news consumers absorb the news. Reading the actual newspaper happens less and less, while online publications and blogs with abbreviated articles have become increasingly popular, as have the pithy, sleek news videos that accompany them. In the interest of continuing to be informed out the world around us, global society with access to the Internet has transitioned into a culture of more passive information consumption (from blogs, videos, TED talks, etc) from a wide variety of sources.

With the initial introduction of smaller, more homegrown media sources, media took the shape of a “two-tiered structure” (Massing, 2004: v). Dissenting opinions that ran rampant in the lower tier (rife with blogs, niche publications and informal media) rarely were acknowledged at the upper tier, which often tried to target a larger, mainstream audience with fact-based reporting. But recently we’ve also seen this change; we have to consult these lower tier publications to get a complete take of current news, due in large part to the fact that major media outlets have become more politicized than ever. As recent class guest and former Press Secretary to the Obama Administration, P.J. Crowley, put it, “all of a sudden, we as a society choose our politics, then we choose our media” (Dee, 2012: 1). His insight calls into question the changing face of media, and thus the drastic and seemingly irreversible changes his former position has undergone in recent years.

The role of the Press Secretary is and has always been complex. Traditionally known as the formal, external link between the White House administration and the general press, there has historically been a great deal of responsibility imbued into this position. As the relationship between the press and the government has grown stronger throughout time, so has the position become increasingly vital to government affairs, both foreign and domestic. The Press Secretary needs not only to be deeply in tune with the pulse of the administration and the reasoning behind every political decision, but also well-versed in the ways in which the press formally and informally functions, including the importance of pressing deadlines, personal motivations and industry competition. This vital linkage between government and media is a precarious area in which to work, as it means constant attention to the message of an administration in context to a sometimes hostile press environment. Knowledge of government proceedings may come second even to an awareness of public perception of the President, or the approval ratings for Presidential decisions. The Press Secretary has to be aware that they do not in fact craft public opinion; rather, in this day and age, it is the news sources that do this.

With the change of the face of news and the proliferation of media sources, the role of the Press Secretary has become that much more complicated. Michael Massing, author of Now They Tell Us: The American Press and Iraq, speculates that an external government role (such as Crowley’s) has “becom[e] not so much a conveyor of straightforward information, and certainly not a seeker of truth, but a well-managed, -programmed and –funded polemicist whose charge is to ‘stay on message’” and in this way “all too many government officials have become salespeople” (Massing, 2004: xvi). Crowley himself drew attention to the idea that each administration has a different relationship with the press, as does each Press Secretary. The very important and very delicate government-press relationship is thus in many ways curated by this essential, externally-facing role.

Information flow has become multi-faceted, and no longer does official White House information always come from the Press Secretary him or herself (take the WikiLeaks incident in early 2011, about which Crowley became famous for running his mouth). There are organically and digitally viral rumors that reproduce and swirl at lightening speeds in grassroots networks (found in the “lower tier”) that the Press Secretary then has the challenge of addressing through the “upper tier” of media, in hopes that the intended message will trickle down to the second level of information flow, which is constantly increasing in size and scope. But this trickle-down is never certain, which is probably why Obama himself has started taking questions from popular entertainment magazines (Tapper, 2012) and why current press secretary Robert Gibbs has started doing the “First Question” series based on questions submitted from the public via social media (mainly, Twitter). These Q&A sessions have been broadcast via webcam for a sort of personal press conference effect. The Press Secretary role has become more public-focused, in light of a vibrant lower tier, in order to break through the layers of arguably elitist news sources of the upper tier that can alter information in the interest of making it more palatable.

Crowley mentioned in his visit that it is as important to have an informed citizenry as it is to have an informed government. So what exactly is the role of the Press Secretary in making sure this happens, especially in our digital age where more information is present than one can fully consume? We have the problem of gaining access to information for many people around the world; in some locations, it is a challenge even to find Internet to engage with broader political discussions. But then we have the issue of too much news and not enough interest, where many people don’t WANT to consume everything that is available for them to consume. In that case, how can media sources and information narratives ensure they secure themselves in the dominant position? At what point does a public stop consuming and start, instead, producing their own opinions and insights? It is hard enough to ideate how a media outlet stays at the top of the industry and thus at the forefront of major discourse. How does government manage, then, to get a word in with all this noise?

“Media is the one institution we have that is necessary to hold government to account,” says Crowley (Dee, 2012: 1). As illustrated in both Now They Tell Us and “Why We Fight” (directed by Eugene Jarecki), a large enough investigation of government activities around “Operation Iraqi Freedom” was never successfully conducted, and thus resulted in our government changing its mission and message over years of time. Sure, a democratic government needs to be held accountable to its people, and the media provides the opportunity for information dissemination such that the public has the ability to hold them accountable. But who holds the media accountable? It could be that media sources keep each other in check, or that the lower tier keeps tabs on the upper tier by putting them in their place. But these are all internal checks, media keeping tabs on media. Who is externally providing the check media sometimes so desperately needs? It is in journalists’ best interest to provide factually accurate representations of news and current events, but it is also important to stay afloat in the current new climate, using intrigue and flavor to create a buzz-worthy news story. The book The News Media, Civil War and Humanitarian Action asks, “is the role of media to inform or entertain?” (Minear et al., 1996: 4). It may be a bit of both.

A responsible government is one that is accountable to its citizens, and no one knows this better than Crowley or Gibbs: liaising with the press means communicating with the public. But in the age of technology where information runs rampant and it is harder to control government narrative and messaging, the role of the Press Secretary has taken a new form. No longer can he or she rely on practiced messaging and formal diction. Instead, the Press Secretary role has become necessarily more nimble, able to speak to a variety of types of media sources with sincerity and a willingness for open communication. Watch or listen to any press conference today (like the ones shown in Ted Bogosian’s film “The Press Secretary”) and it is immediately clear that journalists are relentless and often excessive in their pursuit of truth. More and more, people have firsthand access to information, and with the access comes inevitable feedback and opportunities for verbal attacks on the administration.

In our current times, the role of the Press Secretary needs to focus on relationship building. It is impossible to simply act as a passive, defensive government figurehead; it is time to actively engage with audiences of all types. Why ignore the lower tier of media especially with its size, intellectual rigor and collection of public opinion? The current administration’s ability to engage with the public on new levels has innovated the way government communications are conducted. It challenges the idea of traditional “news outlets” as the middlemen. It brings to question the need for the conventional publications industry at all. By adding directly to the lower tier with video blogs and Twitter chats, government figures like Gibbs are not skirting their accountability to the press, but rather making themselves accountable to a new and more widespread population.

Works Consulted

Massing, Michael (2004). Now They Tell Us. New York, NY: New York Review of Books.

Larry Minear, et al. (1996). The News Media, Civil War and Humanitarian Action. Lynne Rienner Publishers.

Dee, Gabrielle (November15, 2012). Past State spokesman talks media, messaging. Brown Daily Herald.

Tapper, Jake (August 16, 2012). President Obama Takes Questions from People Mag, Entertainment Tonight, Disses White House Press Corps. ABC News.

In the age of YouTube, appropriation and the protection of intellectual property are becoming more complex issues. New media forms have come to play a crucial role in everyday life and people rely on the Internet for information and inspiration. Film footage, radio broadcasts, and photographs are produced and reproduced online at a speed that makes it difficult to know who was the first to create what. This in turn affects the ability to protect intellectual property. Media projects today are often results of appropriation, i.e. the act of taking someone else's work for one's own use. Free, old material is frequently utilized in new projects, more or less changed, and mash-ups are accepted as creative art forms as well as efficient ways to criticize and influence. As the IT-generation views the Internet as a pool of free resources, appropriation has become a normal practice. There is a need to come up with new policies and regulations when the masses are becoming supporters, consciously or not, of breaking intellectual property laws. Freedom online has the potential to enable learning and reaction that can lead to societal change. In a country like the US, where class mobility remains limited, illegal streaming of e.g. political documentaries online can educate and bring possibilities to less affluent people who otherwise remain ignorant. Therefore, the challenge lies in finding the balance between a respect for the original creator and the potential that the free Internet offers to increase equality.

The issue of intellectual property is not a new phenomenon, but the rise of the Internet has changed and augmented the related problems and how appropriation is viewed in society. Firstly, the speed of the Internet continues to reach new levels as more files are uploaded and copied more quickly. This enables more people to download files, change them or stream them illegally on new sites, while it is difficult to find out where the file came from or who is resposible for breaking laws. In addition, more and more individuals come up with ideas, get hold of cameras, applications, and put films and music up online. Creating media is not the job of a select few anymore, but rather done by different kinds of people from diverging parts of society. Therefore, it is difficult, if not impossible, to know who developed an idea first, if you can even determine that. Music is e.g. created through artificial bands in applications like GarageBand and then shared on MySpace. There are a myriad of creative projects out there, waiting for recognition, and consciously or not audiences are influenced by clips seen or music heard. The overabundance of files can therefore lead to an increasing difficulty in knowing where an idea came from and consequently lead to the usage of already existing material. The frequency of file exchange thus adds to the enormous issue of protecting intellectual property on the Internet. The identification of the original is a much more problematic process today than it was just ten years ago.

Moreover, the generation that has grown up with the World Wide Web has become used to viewing it as a free source of information and material. Because of the enormous amount of free resources that the Internet indeed provides, such as magazine articles, episodes of CW-shows, etc., many users have come to think that everything should be without charge. Therefore, if one newspaper charges to read its articles, there is a good chance another newspaper will offer the same information for free and most people will choose the free site, disregarding the possible moral reasons for why one charges while the other one does not. Similarly, if iTunes charges you to listen to their music, you can use a site like Pandora or Spotify to listen to the same song without paying the extra dollar for it. Therefore, shared movies on YouTube are often looked at as public goods; once they are up online, you have the right to watch them, take them, and develop or transform them however you like. Few people consider a video clip that includes footage from TV-broadcasts with a soundtrack as anything illegal, even if the video clip uses material that is copyrighted and so goes against intellectual property laws. The Internet users have become accustomed to the low cost of Internet material and lost the sense of traditional ethics when it comes to intellectual property online.

Files found in cyberspace can additionally be uploaded without the creator even knowing it and as more files are uploaded and more applications downloaded for little to no money, more people start to play around with editing programs, mashing up old videos with new ones or incorporating snippets of different songs into a new remix. In a setting where it has become so common to obtain material online without paying or giving someone else credit, this type of appropriation has become regarded as normal and legal. As long as there is no exploitation of revenue for someone else's work, it is not perceived as breaking copyright laws, but rather as activity that can boost the selling of the originals. True or not, it constitutes a problem when the original producers do not get sufficient credit for their work. This is why Western governments are cracking down on sites like Megavideo and threatening to impose bills like the Commercial Felony Streaming Act that would make unofficial online streaming of copyrighted material a crime that can lead to five years in jail. As the Internet does not appear to slow down, as more files are uploaded and copied, it is justified that production companies and artists worry about their own futures when so much can be freely obtained online, then also altered and reproduced. The question if this kind of appropriation, the building on existing works of art, can be viewed as wrong or not is less interesting than the fact that this is our reality and we need to find new ways of handling it rather than keeping up with the blame-game.

As the digital technologies are only evolving and becoming more complex, it is time to look for new ways to handle intellectual property on the Internet. Tracking down file sharers and closing down illegal mash-up videos online are costly and time-consuming activities that in the end probably will not save the art industries as much as damage them. Rather, when illegal practices have become largely accepted by the public, such as YouTube sharing, a site that also brings in revenue through the commercials shown before the films, we need to look for alternative ways to be aware of and give the originators credit. Chris Anderson has argued in his book, “Free”, that digital recordings need to be used for promotion instead of for sale, so that it would become advertisement for concerts and new releases in the movie theaters (Erisman: 2011). This way there would be incentives for artists to continue creating and putting their work up online voluntarily. If the copyright laws online were not so strict, there is a possibility that more people could be transparent with what has influenced their work and there could be greater creative exchange online. The art industry could find ways to use the Internet to influence and sell films and music, without always bringing in direct returns.

The positive aspect of documentaries, films, and music being freely available online is the possibility it gives to promote equality. Music and film have remained privileges of richer people who can afford to pay for albums on iTunes without giving up a week's money for food. If the government starts to shut down sites showing political documentaries, influential films and all other kind of art forms, it is yet again the same people who will suffer that always suffer. These are the people who will not have access to the same cultural aspects of society and are more likely to be caught engaging in illegal cyberspace activity. These are also the citizens who often are the least educated and the ones who should be able to use exactly the benefits the Internet can provide: self-education and motivation that can lead to change. Even though it is understandable why a freelance documentary filmmaker would be upset about his or her movie being shown for free online, this is an important part of the micro-practices the Internet enables. Instead of only having access to mainstream TV, funded by different interest groups with specific agendas, the Internet is the one access to multiple inputs, perspectives and sources. It is the forum where the most ignorant in society can be reached. Many citizens in the world cannot afford to buy several films online and the Internet gives the opportunity to be part of the modern society regardless of economic background. With new policies that, rather than target the normalized illegal actions of many people, focus on online transparency and giving credit to the originators, the Internet can continue to be a road to more equality. In order to change society and the existing norms and perceptions within a culture, there needs to be greater outreach to the groups who know the least. Free information sources online can realize this aim.

There needs to be a balance between respect and credit for the people who first created a project and the possible utility for those who can enjoy and use these sources for free. By working out new policies in collaboration with young people who make up the IT-generation, with production companies, economists, and lawyers, there can be new ways of looking at intellectual property online. Of course, there will not be complete regulation of what is put on piracy websites, and copying and downloading will not cease to exist. However, the situation can change from being the hysterical search and identification of copyright law-breakers, to being one of more transparency. People should certainly continue to pay for e-books and movies, but in a world that is infested with inequality, I personally find it more important that the most unfortunate in society can get educated than that a single movie producer gets all the revenue he might be legally due. The Internet is expanding, and the idea that anyone can control what is put up and used online is becoming more and more absurd. The Internet wants to be free, and policy makers need to work out new laws that will enable intelligent material to be shared online in order to increase equality and stop the current issue of the majority becoming law breakers.

Bibliography:

Erisman, Albert. “Intellectual Property in the YouTube Era: The Justin Bieber Problem”, Econtent, 27 Oct. 2011.

“S.978: Commercial Felony Streaming Act.” Open Congress. 20 Jun. 2011.

There is little doubt that the current state of news media has significantly altered the way government policy is formed, portrayed, and interacts in the international arena. Specifically, news media has the ability to call attention to humanitarian crises or events that can produce an affective response strong enough to illicit reaction from a state’s policymakers. Dubbed the ‘CNN effect’, Larry Minear et al. outline how news media can have the profound effect of oversaturating the particulars of a news story such that it develops the power to command action from international actors. Through the CNN effect, we can sometimes even consider news media itself to be an agent of policy change. Michael Massing, on the other hand, posits that American press coverage of the build up towards the war in Iraq failed to hold the US government accountable for its actions, which he argues is the most important responsibility of news media (Massing 34). Though both texts engage with the role of media in shaping and correcting government policy, Minear et al. focus on how media participates in the ‘crisis triangle’ -- composed of itself, policymakers and humanitarian agencies -- and is both constrained and emboldened by its influence on governments and humanitarian action, whereas Massing chooses to highlight the, in his opinion, faulty link between media coverage and the US government during the buildup and initial period of the Iraq War. However, neither of the texts directly address the effect that advances in media technology may or may not have on the delivery of press coverage as information versus entertainment. In fact, it is perhaps technological advance itself that has led traditional news coverage astray from its glorified moniker of ‘the fourth estate’.

Massing argues that American press coverage of the build up to the Iraq war as well as its initial period was flawed in several ways, most notably a lack of knowledgeable, investigative journalists as well as an administration that valued faith-based policy and disregarded the media, in his articles published in the New York Review of Books in 2004. In the case of cable television journalists, most were severely impeded by their inability to speak or understand Arabic, which resulted in a limited scope of access once on Iraqi soil (Massing 15). Insubstantial reporting, continues Massing, combined with the Bush administration’s “...creating a set of truths” (47) for itself simultaneously promoted a censorship of graphically violent images and a perception of the media as a vehicle for indoctrination of the ‘war on terror’. Massing also adeptly points out that most journalists feared a denial of access as punishment for questions too probing, and those who did critically examine the administration’s justification for war on Iraq often didn’t contribute to publications with strong enough distribution numbers to warrant a response or trend. In addition to Massing’s conclusion that these problems arose in part because of the transformation that the US administration experienced during the Bush era, Minear et al.’s definition of media as “an institution with a process” (Minear et al. 31) proves helpful in conceptualizing how the introduction of new technology has radically altered the volume and pace of information flow. After information is transmitted, it undergoes an extensive editing and packaging process; there are now more stakeholders in individual pieces of information than there have ever been. Widespread use of the internet and computers was a still relatively novel phenomena during the beginning of the Iraq war, and so perhaps the journalistic structure, instead of reflecting a failure on all anchors, journalists, and media personnel has been slow in adapting to our online, oversaturated, and hyper-informed style of media consumption of today.

Minear et al.’s work critically addresses the way in which the visibility produced by media can have adverse effects on foreign policy agenda setting. Specifically, Minear et al. discuss how the mutually beneficial relationship between media and military forces in Somalia between 1992-1994 actually changed both the course and outcome of US military missions in Somalia as well as the quality of press coverage as a direct result. Similar to Massing’s accounts of American journalists embedding themselves with marines in Iraq for security and access, so too did the media in Somalia, in exchange for “publicity for domestic consumption and useful intelligence about conditions in the interior of the country.” (Minear et al. 55) According to the authors, the ill timing of US intervention and subsequent withdrawal of forces in 1992 and 1994 were a direct result of an affective response of policymakers to media coverage portraying young famine victims. (54) This style of reporting prompted the desire and constant search for the frontline story for the purpose of authenticity as well as the first to distribute information; ironically, Massing argues that US journalists often unwittingly fabricated authenticity for on-the-ground reporting because of their inability to speak with Iraqi residents or accurately interpret the conflict and battle they were witness to. (Massing 45) As a result, American reports on the war often centered on stories of military heroics, quenching the thirst for war back home and softening the harsh realities of battle; American media coverage in effect leveraged the Bush administration’s position within Washington a great deal, enabling it to continue the war efforts back home and its aggressively punitive foreign policy agenda.

Although both texts engage with the role media has played in the international arena, the transition to world in which a plethora of online news materials are available warrants some further exploration. While Minear et al. do assert that the work that visual imagery does particularly in garnering humanitarian aid and resources is in some ways more powerful than any printed coverage of a crisis, their work stems from before the era post-September 11th attacks on the World Trace Center and the subsequent global ‘war on terror’, not to mention painfully unaware of the recent ‘social media revolutions’ in the Egypt, Tunisia, and other countries in the Middle East, indicating that the world of internet news and the possibility of instant distribution without factual check remains an avenue that warrants careful review. As Massing indicates, the CNN effect has in some ways evolved into complete noise, a “bandwagon to jump on” (21), and if this is the case, implications on news media’s role in the Minear et al. crisis triangle will likely suffer a significant impact.

Out of chaos, order emerges - below is the first cut for final project. We'll finesse in class on Wednesday, with an eye to balancing out numbers and skill sets.

VTY
JDD

Art of diplomacy: a short treatment (3-5 pages) and pitch reel that follows/is inspired by TB's documentary 'The Press Secretary , but in this case the documentary will follow an Ambassador for 72 hours (TBA): JDD and TBB

Gillian - sound design+, FCP-
Anna - editing/narrating+, dreamer+
Chris - apprentice filmmaker, words+

Art of war: a short treatment and a 3-5 minute trailer for Project Z: The Final Global Event: Phil Gara and JDD

Ian - editing+, keen to learn, passionate
Lily - music+, FCP-
Alisa - artful+, FCP-

Art of peace: a short treatment and pitch real, using footage shot in RI prison class that Santos and JDD taught and/or interviews that Udris shot at the Montebello Art of Peace conference. Udris bros and JDD

Lanna - Production+, writing+, editing-
Polina - editing+, fontmeister+, tone deaf

Wildcard - Art of Dissimulation?

Spencer - archival rat+, fcp-
Emily - fcp+, editing+, interviews+, overcommitted-
Deffarges - IR wonk+, filming-
Avery - FCP+-, production+, interviews+

Ted's doc (For your eyes only_

Roberto
Kevin
Rachel
Zainab
Addie
Madelene
Mabel
Maya
Lya

In our search for solutions we are often burdened with the need for originality. Responses to analogous past issues appear, in common parlance, to be tainted. This quest for unique treatments often overlooks simple solutions. There seems to be an unwillingness to consider the adaptive reuse of history's tested answers. We are plagued by this myopia. Accordingly, when faced with the structural issues of today, with inequities born of systems damaged, we should look to the past where the answers lay quietly gathering dust. Little more than a hundred years ago, the United States was witness to a particularly effervescent moment of reform: the Progressive Era. Bridging the 19th and 20th centuries, the Progressive Era was characterized by muckrakers, reform minded journalists who sought to uncover the spectacular corruption and wayward practices of both the country's private and public sectors. There are lessons to be learned from these individuals and how they sought to effect change within uncooperative systems.
Journalist Upton Sinclair's 1906 inadvertent (Sinclair was more concerned with worker's rights) take-down of the meatpacking industry, The Jungle, is a lesson in the ways that creative reporting can be the impetus for change in a place that actively resists it. The fictionalized account of a family of Lithuanian immigrants working in the appalling conditions of Chicago's meat-yards first brought the terror there witnessed to the American public via serialized newspaper printings. The then novelized publication outraged America with its depiction of lost fingers in slabs of beef. The outrage that ensued ultimately led to the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 which in turn led to the founding of the FDA. The far-reaching consequences of Sinclair's work show how a careful, unmitigated journalism that is nevertheless "entertaining" can provide just the right spark to incite an unforeseen and yet much needed change. Sinclair realized that you can't only make people aware of the issue; you have to also make finding a solution salient to them. We need to follow the lessons of the Progressive Era.
Individuals like Sinclair had to their advantage a populace that was not nearly as divided as we are now. The multiplicity of platform options that the modern citizen has seems to stand in the way of news media producing any piece of investigative journalism that has the power to crystallize public opinion. We simply get our news from too many different sources that now come tailored to our own political and social biases to really engender any sort of wholesale change. Documentary film is worthy of this task. Film's form, one which calls for the production of a cogent whole, requires the filmmaker to synthesize information into an absorbing and comprehensible final product that responds to both the director's and viewer’s needs. The final product after navigating the complicated web of distribution that requires a certain amount of dealing with the enemy (the enemy always has the money) then has the power to reach the type of audience that here parallels the readers of the Progressive novel and serialized magazine or newspaper account. There seems to be though some subconscious distinction drawn between journalism's power to both inform and entertain and documentary film's corresponding properties. Film is maligned for a perceived lack of gravity. Relegated to serving only entertainment purposes, the power documentary has to dissect, interrogate, and ameliorate corrosive systems is underestimated. One of the problems of depending on documentary film to enact change is that even if the film was doing something important, the glamour or superficiality pegged to film could possibly obfuscate it, wrapping people up in the art of the moment without the insistence on a substantive follow through.
Documentary film is one of the best ways to effect change within a system because it circumvents many of the restrictive forces that one may encounter while attempting to produce measurable difference. By providing the issue at hand with a platform divorced from the oppressive structure itself, the film can start to erode the malaise and bureaucracy that plague organizations and institutions and that makes it difficult to come to edifying solutions. Large structural issues are often allowed to run rampant because they lack an internal system of checks and balances. Documentaries are uniquely positioned to fulfill this role, as a pseudo public consciousness they can bring to light that which goes grossly ignored. It's important to understand that resistance is not the only contradictory force at play. Often it is much easier to let things be, to grow complacent under the powerful inertia that develops around organizations. If anything, documentary film can effect change within restrictive structures because documentary's with their paradigmatic mix of fact and entertainment reach a wider audience than any esoteric report can possibly hope to do. The mere production of a documentary film acts as a propulsive force.
The recent past has proven that documentaries are adroitly capable of producing change on both the public and private levels. One particularly salient example is Davis Guggenheim and Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. The film's depiction of the former Vice President's slideshow detailing climate change and global warming, wove the social and scientific into a comprehensive warning of the dangers inherent in ignoring the mounting signs of precipitous environmental damage. The inconvenience in the film's title refers to the oft-avoided reality of climate change but could also be understood as a signal of the pernicious ways that the government's intervention in global climate policy is colored by special interests. The film's emphasis on scientific evidence of the changes being outlined and the insistence that the cause is not only not lost but can be ameliorated avoided the fatalistic view often associated with climate change. An Inconvenient Truth brought the discussion of climate change onto a global stage and propelled the creation of the Select Committee On Energy Independence and Global Warming, allowed for the dissemination of Gore's slideshow presentation around the world and reportedly aided in the offsetting of 106,000 tons of carbon. By avoiding scare tactics, presenting a scientifically comprehensible view of the problem, and marking the different ways that citizens could take action on the smallest of scales, the film was able to effect change in the face of malaise, apathy, and the force of an angered opposition.
A film of a decidedly different tenor, Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me, took a less nuanced approach that nevertheless was able to produce results in the face of a preposterously moneyed enemy. Spurlock's chronicle of the nutritional detriment of an extreme thirty-day McDonald's diet precipitated a public discussion of the dangerously high levels of obesity in the United States and the fast food industry's active role in perpetuating the issue. Even though Super Size Me's hyperbole was dismissed by some as a piece of shock jockeying, the film was the catalyst for a national discussion about the importance of healthy dietary habits and perhaps most telling of all, resulted in McDonald's withdrawing of their Super Size meal option. The film did not fall on deaf ears. Spurlock may have envisioned his film as the impetus for a more thorough derailing of fast food, yet the increased awareness that lead to changes like the listing of caloric details at fast food chains cannot be underestimated. The film had a real and lasting impact that countered the detrimental status quo established by the fast food industry.
What we have with these two films are diverging accounts of productive ways to bring about change in the face of structural opposition. The visual and storytelling devices that are often taken for granted when appraising a documentary are also of importance. Both An Inconvenient Truth and Super Size Me take into account the need to produce an entertaining film, there is nothing dowdy or pedantic about either. They manage to be both informative and captivating without relying on the professorial tone that plagues many documentaries and that however important the message routs the opportunity for impact because the audience is lost. Documentary's singular mix of entertainment and fact is a worthy successor of the muckraking practices that brought about such widespread results at the beginning of the last century and is a preternaturally effective actor for change in the face of restrictive institutions.
Effecting change within a system that resists it requires the careful towing of diverging priorities. Because of the resistance endemic to organizations and the inertial qualities that make effecting such change nearly impossible, there has to be a consideration of both content and audience, one that acts as propulsive by making the need for change seem necessary, pertinent to the lives of all. By drawing on civic considerations of responsibility while couching the call in attractive content, documentary film is uniquely positioned for success. Documentaries remind us of what we owe each other, the bonds of human and citizen that propel our national longevity.